Recognition and Identity in Euripides' Ion

RECOCNITION AND MODES OF KNOWLEDCE Anagnorisis from Antiquity to Contemporc;I/Y Theory TERESA E3 THE UNIVERS1TY,OF ALI!E~TA PRESS G. RUSSO, Editor Published by The University of Alberta Press Ring House 2 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G ZEI www.uap.ualberta.ca Copyright If! 2013 The University LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES Recognition of Alberta CANADA CATALOGUING and modes of knowledge Based on papers presented Press IN PUBLICATION : anagncnsis at the Centre from antiquity for Comparative Literature's to contemporary annual G. Russo, editor. theory ITe·resa conference at the University of Toronto, April,2008. Includes bibliographical references Issued alsoin electronic ISBN 918-0- and index. fonnat. 88864-SS8-6 I. Recognition in literature-Congresses. Theory of, in literature-Congresses. S. Comparative Literature. History-Congresses. and criticism- Theory, etc.L-Congrcsses. U. University of Toronto. 3. Knowledge, Centre for Comparative (2008) first printing, 2013. and bound in Canada by Houghton Copycdjting (PhHosophy)- I. Russo, Teresa G., 1972- literature-Congresses. Confereru;e First edition, Printed a, Recognition 4. Literature-History Boston Printers, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. by Joanne Mu;ak. and proofreading fndeJLing by Judy Dunlop. Ali rights reserved. 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The University Government photocopying, of A1herta Press for further on Enviro Paper: it contains The University may be produced, rne<:hanical, through from The support of the the Alberta CONTENTS PREFACE IX ROLAND LE HUENEN ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION XL XIII A Rising of Knowledge TERESA G. RUSSO SOMETHING PIERO 2 RECOCNITION NAOMI 3 IN RECOGNITION AND IDENTITY IN EURIPIDES'S ION ETHICAL EPIPHANY IN THE STORY OF JUDAH AND ADELMAN BIBLICAL RECOGNITION 77 Seperation From Bestiality and InGestlAOU5Relationships as Resistance to Hellenization HARRY 5 33 A. WEISS RACHEL 4 DIVINE BOITANI FOX ENTER RHIANNON (LEBEIT JOB, WITH CRAYBILL YOREH) FEAR AND TREMBLING 101 TAMAR 51 6 THOMAS AQUINAS ON CHRISTIAN RECOGNITION 123 The Case ofMaty Magdalene KEVIN »>. \,,7 )J FREDERICK NARRATIVE VAUGHAN IDENTITY 141 Recognizing Oneself in Augustine and Ricoeur JENNA 8 SUNKENBERG THE INTERRUPTION INTERPOLATED JEFFREY 9 NEil SPENSER'S OF TRAUMATIC TALE OF DOROTEA DOUBLING 155 WEINER BAD ROMANCE 179 "First, Astonishments; Then, Consolations" in The Fatrfe Queene JOSEPH 10 I THE RINC HOME, THE PALACE, THE CELL 219 Places of Recognition in Le rouge et le nair and Great Expectations ROSA " MUCICNAT RECOGNIZING OUR MISRECOGNITIONS Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Recognition CHRISTINA TARNOPOlSKY CONTRIBUTORS IN 0 EX 265 261 241 IN THE 2 RECOGNITION IN AND EURIPIDES'S IDENTITY JON NAOMI TH E M 0 TI F OF RE COG NI T ION A. WEISS is one that recurs throughout Greek tragedy.' Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three dominant tragedians of fifth-century Athens, all employed this motif, often in the form of a series of tokens that reveal the presence of one family member to another. Probably the best examples of their use of and interest in the process of recognition are their three different versions of essentially the same scene from the Electra story, in which she realizes that her brother Orestes, whom she has not seen since he was a baby, has returned to Argos.' Euripides particularly liked to play with and question the stages of the recognition process, as demonstrated scene as it was presented in Aeschylus's by his famous parody of this Choephoroi. The same tokens of a iock of hair, a footprint, and a piece of cloth, which persuade Electra that Orestes is present in Aeschylus's tragedy (Cha. 170-211), are pointed out to her by the old man in Euripides's play, but she ridicules the validity of each, and thus indirectly ridicules Aeschylus's use of this old dramatic technique too.' The increasing comedy of each logical rejection makes a mockery of the Aeschylean pas-sage, demonstrating "a different construc- tion of the realities of recognition" (Goldhill aa-): but this scene mocks the 33 mocker too, since for all her logic and scorn Electra is mistaken, as Orestes has in fact arrived in Argos. For full dramatic and comical effect here Euripides relies on the familiarity of at least the "competent" members of the audience with the Aeschylean scene.' The Helen similarly exemplifies not just Euripides's playful manipuiation of the recognition motif but also his reliance on its popularity for the success of his own parody: Helen fails to recognize her husband, Menelaus, just when an audience so primed in the use of such scenes would be expecting her to do so (541-65). When she does then recognize Menelaus, he shrinks from her, believing she is a spectre rather than the "real" Helen (557-96).5 In the Ion Euripides also expioits the motif of recognition, though not simply through parody. The main recognition scene is particularly poignant and effective, as it is between a mother and son, separated since his birth up until the moment they meet on stage. It is also the climax of several near-recognitions between them, which have augmented their immediate and mutually sympathetic bond but not led them to realize their actual relationship. Finally, it is a "true" recognition after the "false" one in a parody of a recognition scene between Ion and his stepfather (517-62). Recognition in this play is psychologically significant too, as it is an important partof the process of therapeutic change that is spacked by the meeting of the two main characters, Ion and Kreousa. This involves not only their mutual recognition as son and mother but also their selfrecognition, enabling both at last to reach full maturity as, respectively, young man and matron. With such recognition comes the creation-or recreation-of identity, a sense for each (but particuiarly for Iou) of who they are, where they come from, and what place they have in the world. Their final recognition (both mutual and self) can occur only through a process of therapeutic change, involving the restructure of memory and identity. Repetition is crucial to this process, as we can see if we view the development of these two main characters in the light of Freud's notion of repetition compulsion ("Beyond the Pleasure Principle," 1920), as well as other patterns of behaviour concerning childhood development 34 Recognitionand Identity in Euripides'sIon examined by both Freud and his successors." Elsewhere I have discussed the similarities between Euripides's Ion and Freud's discussion in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" more fully:" here I focus on the ways in which the reading of the one through the other can illuminate the processes of recognition at work in the play. The Ion begins with a prologue (1-236) given by the god Hermes, who tells us that Kreousa, queen of Athens, was raped by Apollo and secretly gave birth to a son, whom she abandoned to die. Upon Apollo's instructions, however, Hermes rescued the baby and took him to Apollo's temple at Delphi, where he was reared by the priestess in ignorance of his true parentage. We learn that the boy will be reunited with his mother and called Ion (literally "the one coming/going") by Xuthus, Kreousa's husband and king of Athens. After finishing this prologue, Hermes exits and we see Ion, now a teenager, working in the temple at Delphi. sweeping the floor and shooing birds away. Kreousa then enters, as she has come to the oracle with her non-Athenian husband, Xuthus, to see if she will have any children from him. She and Ion meet and exchange their respective histories; they learn that one is childless and the other parentless (particularly motherless). The location of Delphi reminds Kreousa of her rape by Apollo, which she relates as the experience of a "friend." Despite questioning it suspiciously, Ion accepts her account. Kreousa's departure is followed by the arrival of Xuthus, who has been told by the oracle that the first person he meets upon leaving the temple is his son. He encounters Ion"and embraces him as a son, although, in a comical twist, Xuthus seems more like a lecherous old man pursuing an attractive youth than a father discovering his son. After much hesitation and many questions regarding the possible circumstances of his birth, ' Ion eventually accepts Xuthus as his father but wonders about the identity of his mother. He also predicts what sorts of problems now await him in Athens as an illegitimate son of a non-Athenian king. After Ion and Xuthus have left the stage, Kreousa enters again, this time with her old tutor. She is distressed upon learning through the chorus that Xuthus has accepted Ion as his son, and finally reveals how she was raped by Apollo NAOMI A. WEISS 35 and abandoned her baby. She does this first in the form of a monody (solo song), then by responding to the old man's questions. He urges her to take revenge on Apollo for behaving in this way, and so they plot to kill Ion using poison and leave the stage. The events that follow are described by a messenger who tells us that the banquet held in honour of Ion was interrupted by a murder attempt (instead of Ion, a dove dies after drinking the poisoned wine). The old man has been caught and has betrayed Kreousa, whom Ion is now pursuing. Ion tries to kill Kreousa in revenge for her attempt on him, but she retreats to the temple for asylum. A fierce dialogue ensues and an impasse threatens the drama's progress. At this point, however, Apollo's priestess enters and shows Ion the basket in which he was originally found as a baby. Kreousa recognizes it and realizes that the young man is in fact her son. Ion is at first suspicious but gradually believes Kreousa as she correctly describes each item contained within the basket. He joyfully accepts her as his mother, though he does not seem fully convinced until the ap~earance of the goddess Athena, who confirms their relationship and praises Apollo. Athena tells Kreousa to keep quiet about the fact that she is Ion's biological mother so that Xuthus can continue to believe he is the father. Mother and son prepare to leave for Athens, where Ion will be king. Repetition and duplication clearly abound in the Jon: within the play itself there are two recognition scenes, two consultations of the Delphic oracle, and two murder attempts. A sense of repetition is also present in the play's broader background of myth and the characters' own pasts. The original abandonment of Ion by his mother, his removal from Athens in the hands of Hermes, and his final restoration there following the reunion at the play's end recall the separation from and return to Attic land previously undergone by his ancestors, Kekrops, Erichonios, and Erechtheus." The reception of Ion as a son by Xuthus and finally by Kreousa symbolically marks his "rebirth" as he enters manhood, whilst the queen's attempt on his life re-enacts her abandonment oi him as a baby; this action is also relived through the repeated accounts of her rape by Apollo (10-27, 36 Recognition and !dentity in Euripides's Ion 336-58,879-922,936-65,1474-99). Such repetitions of past events, both mythical and personal, cause them to merge with the dramatic present. As in all tragedy, such a blend of the mythical story and its individual treatment by the dramatist prompts a particular type of recognition on the part of the audience. On the one hand, the Athenian spectator would recognize the characters on stage, being reminded, along with the characters themselves, of their ancestry. which was so tied to Athens' own. The spectator was also likely toknow at least in general terms the Ion myth. On the other hand, such recognition only goes so far, as the audience is not yet aware of the characters' personal reaction to their past and the precise representation of the myth by Euripides. Consequently, the audience undergoes a kind of recognition process at the same time as the characters do: as the latter learn and have affirmed their own and each other's identity, so the audience recognizes these relationships according to its prior awareness of the Ion story. For this play, as for other tragedies, such a combination of novelty and recognition must have been a crucial element of the theatrical experience." Kreousa in particular dwells on past events and myth, recollecting them not only through her action but also in speech, as in her monody and descriptions of her ancestors' actions (839-922, 260-82, 987-1003). An "ancient memory" (~V~[!YJnaAaLCt, 250) preoccupies her mind and soalso her speech from the moment she first comes onstage; and with this preoccupation the emphasis of the drama also turns backward, focusing on the moment when she abandoned her child all those years ago." Ion, in contrast, initially seems to be concerned only with the present, his daily activity of caring for Apollo's temple, through which he views his past and future too, "I will labour on the tasks which I have always done since childhood" (102-03).11 Such narrow vision begins to broaden, however, almost as soon as he encounters Kreousa: his curiosity in her ancestry is met by hers in his, so that in answering her questions he talks of his childhood and the unknown circumstances of his birth (258-329). Some sort of recognition between these two characters-as itself for Kreousa-prompts well as that of the place each to dwell upon not just their past but NAOMI A. WEISS 37 also their respective identities and positions in life. Kreousa is clearly well versed in hers, being able to answer all questions with ease, whereas Ion seems for the first time to reflect on who he is: with the emergence of the past comes a sense both of identity and of his lack of one. Recognition, the past, and identity are already interlinked, and not merely for the characters themselves: recogni~on of their foundation myth in the drama is also significant for the Athenian audience, whose own identity stems from that of their ancestor Ion.12 Repetitions of and preoccupation with the past inthe [on are strikingly similar to Freud's description of the "compulsion to repeat" in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle": following a past trauma, a patient "is obliged to repeat the repressed. material as a contemporary experience instead of ...remem- bering it as something belonging to the past" (18, emphasis original)." This phenomenon can be likened to the interference of past traumatic events in the present of Euripides's play, but more specifically to the behaviour of both Ion and Kreousa, particularly in the light of the case with which Freud introduces the concept of repetition compulsion: a young patient, who was very attached to his mother, used to throw objects away whilst making a sound that seemed to represent the German word "fort" ("gone"). Freud sees this action as a manifestation of the child's suppressed impulse to revenge himself on his mother for occasionally leaving him. The boy was able to gain a sense of control over the unpleasant experience of abandonment by repeating it and so transforming that originally passive situation into one in which he was the active agent, rejecting his mother himself (Freud, Beyond 14-17)." Such behaviour is like that of Ion, who responds to his own abandonment by his mother (which Kreousa's murder attempt symbolically re-enacts) by rejecting her in turn, becoming the active partner in their relationship by pursuing her into the temple. IS His action strengthens our impression that, on some level at least, he is aware that Kreousa is in fact his mother, even though he does not fully realize their relationship until their recognition scene.» Ion's envelopment in the present and corresponding opposition to the emergence of the past (he asks Kreousa "not to prompt me to grieve over what had been 38 Recognition and Identity in Euripides's Ion forgotten" [361])" are also like the resistance of Freud's analysand towards attempts to transform his unconscious of the original trauma (Introductory Lectures 331-33).18 the moment However, from when he meets Kreousa and the pro~essof recognition sparked, Ion becomes increasingly cern is particularly interrogates repetition into conscious memory is preoccupied with the past. Such con- striking in the next recognition scene, in which he Xuthus in order to learn about the circumstances of his birth (540-61). Ion's concern for his mothers identity here highlights the great irony that Xuthus is not in fact his father and that this "recognition" scene is a false one. Kreousa's great preoccupation with the past, with both her ancestry and above all her encounter with Apollo and abandonment even more similar to Freud's cases of repetition of her chlId, is compulsion, as well as to those of fixation to traumas: patients could be so "fixated" to a particular moment of their past that they would be "alienated from the present and the future" (Introductory Lectures 313). Kreousa is likewise embedded in the past, to the point where she hardly notices Ion when she first comes onstage (instead she admits that "I turned my mind there, though being here" [251])" and then fails to perceive any of the (many) signs indicating that the boy might be her son before the priestess finally produces the clear evidence of the basket in which she originally abandoned him.w Instead of interacting fully with the present, Kreousa repeats threefold her past e.xperience with Apollo, seemingly unable to release herself from that "ancient memory:' The vividness monody, with a rather aesthetically with which she describes it in her exaggerated concentration on colours (the golden light, Apollo's golden hair, the saffron petals), indicates quite how much this past has become her present (We'iss 42). Prior to the time of the dramatic action Kreousa has remained silent about this experience; although she is fixated to the past during the play itself, her increasingly open repetitions of it (first in the guise of her "friend," then to the .old man, and finally to Ion himself) suggest that this memory is gradually being freed from repression. an increasingly Through such repetitions, she also becomes active agent again, just like Freud's analysand NAOMI A. (Weiss 44; WEISS 39. Zacharia 97). This process is mirrored by the emergence of her past into the play's consciousness too, beginning with Hermes's brief account of the affair and Ion's abandonment. For Kreousa, of course, such openness can only go so far: Xuthus must remain ignorant of the fact that she is Ion's mother, so she must keep silent once again." Through the repetitions of her past traumatic experience Kreousa seems to undergo a kind of therapeutic process, which culminates in her reunion with Ion. In the final recognition scene she fully acknowledges her own part in Ion's abandonment, equating this past action with her recent murder attempt: "tied down in fear, my son, I threw away your life. I killed you unwillingly" (1497-99)." Her "therapy" is therefore completed along with full recognition of not only her son, but also herself: through steadily editing her self-representations through this series of repetitions, Kreousa finally becomes reconciled to her own action. Only now can she emerge from her preoccupation with the past and perceive the signs indieating that Ion is her son; only now can she face the future, as she is ready to return to Athens with him ("0 child, ret us go home," 1616)." Recognition and self-recognition also coincide with Kreousa's realization of her identity in the present." By being reunited with her son she completes her maturation from maiden to mother, which her abandonment of Ion and subsequent childlessness with Xuthus previously prevented. The repetitions involved i~ her therapeutic progress through the course of the play are like those which in psychoanalysis can help promote the resumption of a previously arrested "maturational representative" (Cohen 424).25 drive- By recalling so vividly in her monody her experience as a maiden, when she was seized by Apollo as she gathered flowers, Kreousa indicates that she has not yet freed herself from that status: rather, she is continuously regressing to this earlier stage of her development. Kreousa's lack of a baby for whom she might care has prevented her from completing the transition from maidenhood to motherhood: she laments how "I did not give you a mother's nurture with milk from my breast, nor washing with my hands" (1492-93).26 She is therefore unable to recognize her son both because she is preoccupied 40 Recognition and Identity in Euripides's Ion with her past experience as a maiden to the exclusion of the present reality before her, and also because Ion is the manifestation of her matronly status, which she has not yet recognized in herself. With Ion "reborn" and her whole experience worked through again, Kreousa can finally acknowledge her son and proceed to the status of matron, as her age befits her. In a sense, the drama itself grants Kreousa access to this crucial aspect of her identity. The Kreousa whom the Athenian audience would immediately recognize on stage would be the one whose glorious lineage is relayed early on in the play. The Kreousa whose identity as a maiden or matron is ambiguous is the one constructed by Euripides for and within his drama. The common motif of the recognition scene establishes for the characters within the play the identities that the audience have already recognized, but also forms the climax of those characters' psychological portrayal, making them more than merely mythical entities and allowing them to fulfill their self-ideutity at the same time as both the other characters and the external audience realize their particular status. Just as Euripides likes to play with and manipulate the recognition motif, both in this tragedy and in others, so he plays with the audience's own recognition of his characters and of their relationship to one another. Each representation of Kreousa's union with Apollo demonstrates a possible identity that Euripides could construct for her, although in each we also recognize the Kreousa of the Ion myth. The tragedian's particular presentation of this version of the known myth also brings about a concrete and imaginary specificity for the play itself, as a drama that is recognized as being both within this mythical tradition and Euripides'S own creation, as well as (now) part of the audience's own experience in the theatre. Although Kreousa undergoes a sort of maturation from maiden to matron, it is Ion's development that is most obvious in the play: his naive, boyish outlook in the opening scene matures into a critical, worldly Intelligence." The emergence of his critical capacity is concurrent with his exposure to questions regarding his birth, first when he probes Kreousa regarding the experience of her "friend" (not yet realizing its relation to himself or her), then in his interrogation of Xuthus. Soon he NAOMI A. WEISS 41 fully comprehends the dangers of a political life in Athens (585-620),'" and by the time of the final recognition scene with Kreousa he demonstrates a keen sense of worldly wisdom by mentioning the tendency of young girls to claim divine parentage for their illegitimate children (152048). Repetition enables him, as it does Kreousa, to resume a previously arrested stage of maturation, so that he can progress from child to adult. His symbolic rebirth allows those stages of his development which were originally deficient to he now rectified: Xuthus performs "those sacrifices which we did not make at your birth" (653; cf 1127)," whilst Ion's bond with Kreousa is finally re-established following a repeat of his original abandonment. Just as Kreouea's lack of a baby to care for hindered her from completing the transition from maidenhood to motherhood, so the emphasis that Ion places on his lack of maternal care suggests that this lack has caused a developmental scar in him too: "For at the time when I ought to have been coddled in my mother's arms and taken some delight in life, I was wrenched away from a mother's most loving care" (1375-77; cf. 319).30 Once mother and son have been reunited, Ion, no longer solely concerned with a stagnant present, is able to leave Delphi, the place of his childhood, and embark upon an adult, political life in Athens. Ion's understanding an~ misunderstanding of the outer world around him, sparked by that initial encounter with Kreousa, are therefore concurrent with his gradual recognition and misrecognition of other characters in the play. As well as beginning to recognize characters and situations around him, Ion also starts to show signs of self recognition and identity. With his exposure to the world beyond his previously narrow vision comes his acquisition of identity, which is cru~ial for his development into adulthood. Maturation involves the development of what Richard Lazarus calls an "ego-identity," an attainment of "not merely self-concepts but concepts about the self in the world, including roles, commitments, rela- tionships, and a set of niches or places in that world in which to function" (346). However, it is Ion's parentage that assumes a central place in his self-concept." being ignorant of his parents' identity at the start of the play, he cannot give an account of who he is beyond saying, "I am called 42 RecognitionandIdentity in Euripides'sIon the god's slave, and I am" (309)." His understanding of his position in the world also depends on his heritage, as upon his encounter with his false father, Xuthus; Ion accepts his name and wonders about his political status and relationship with his "stepmother."? Following the recogni- tion scene with Kreousa, he finally leaves for Athens, where· his position is assured: Athena bids him, "Sit upon the ancient throne" (1618).34 The significance of parentage for Ion, however, also demonstrates the limits of applying Freudian theory to every aspect that domination of the drama, since Freud claims of the pleasure principle ends once a child achieves complete psychical detachment from his parents (Five Lectures 48: Introductory Lectures 380). Anna Freud likewise emphasizes the importance of autonomy and individuation from parents in adolescence (The Ego 262-75)." Above all, maternal contact. facilitates Ion's awareness of his own identity, from the initial prompt to wonder about his own origins to his final reunion with Kreousa when he realizes his glorious lineage." Kreousa also in a sense gains a stable identity through this reunion, as she cornpletes the transition from maiden to matron, while the status of her house is also secured as a result of having an heir. 37 For all her knowledge of her ancestry, she is unable to come to terms fully with herself until she has recognized her son: only then can she, like Ion, position herself properly in the world around her. Mother and son each help the other in recovering their identities and simultaneously corning to terf!lS with their past." From the moment they first meet, their mutual empathy encourages Ion to identify Kreousa with his lost mother and she him with her lost son. This initial meeting and, for Kreousa, Delphi itself, spark off a process of therapeutic change and a corresponding recreation of identity that reach fulfillment in the play's closing scene. In sympathizing with one another, they also unknowingly begin to repair their mother-child relationship: Melanie Klein emphasizes how such mutual identification contributes to the process of "making reparation" (311-18). The process of recognition undergone by Kreousa and Ion is therefore not just a sudden climax of the recognition scene at the play's end. Instead, NAOMI A. WEISS 43 it is an extended process lasting almost the entire length of the drama, beginning with the initial meeting of mother and son, and playing a key role in the course of "therapy" that they both experience. Euripides is clearly not merely interested in the motif of recognition, which could simply constitute a scene or two of the drama; nor is he just concerned with recognition in dramatic terms, playing with his audience's prior knowledge of the story he is presenting. Rather, what takes centre stage in the Ion is his exploration of recognition as a psychological experience and, more than anything else, a very human one. Author's Note Thanks are due to Armand D'Angour and Mark Griffith for their helpful advice while I was writing various versions of this article. All Greek quotations are taken from Diggle's 1981 edition of the Ion; all translations are my own. Notes 1. On recognition and recognition scenes elsewhere in Greek literature, see, for example, Murnaghan on the Odyssey. 2. Aeschylus, Choephoroi, 167-234; Sophocles, Electra, 1221-24; Euripides, Electra 508-79. See Davies, Boitani, The Genius, 1-25, and Gallagher on recognition scenes in Electra plays. 3. In Euripides's Electra her arguments are that a man's hair would be unlikely to match that of a girl, especially given their respective activities (527-31); a female's feet probably would not be as big as those of her brother (535-37); and finally that the cloak cannot be the same as that which he wore as a child upon leaving Argos, "unless his robes grew together with his body" (544). 4. On the question of the "competency" of the audiences of Classical Greek drama, see Revermann. We should not simply assume that they were universally sophisticated, but could nonetheless expect a degree of shared competence as a result of frequent exposure to and participation in the theatre at Athens. 5. In Greek tragedy generally (though the Ion is another notable exception), it is the newly arrived, usually male "stranger" who recognizes his wife or sister before she does him. Euripides characteristically upturns this convention in the Helen, with mutual misrecogniti.on followed by one-sided true recognition on the part of Helen 44 Recognitionand Identity in Euripides'sIon rather than Menelaus. See also Boitani, The Bible, 130-45 on the recognition scene in this play. 6. Pedrick also examines recognition in the Ion in the light of Freudian psychoanalysis, particularly emphasizing the significance of fire at moments of recognition in both Euripides's play and in Freud's case of The Wolf Man (see "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis," 7. 8. 154-84). See Weiss. See Zachatia on the basic mythemes operating in the play (67-68). Kekrops was buried in the Athenian soil whence he was born; Athena raised Erichthonios from the ground; Erechtheus was consumed by a chasm into the earth. 9. And indeed for theatre in general, as De Marinis points out: "the fragile balance is kept between the pleasure of discovery, the unexpected, and the unusual, on the one hand, and the pleasure of recognition, deja vu, and the anticipated on the other" (U2). On the degrees to which the Athenian audience might have engaged with drama on an Inter-textual (or Inter-performative) and mythological level, see Revermann. 10. 'Through her ancestry Kreousa is also most closely related to the play's various mythical figures, see Wolff, 182. This connection may heighten the sense of her detachment from the largely human present. 11. 1jPf:i~ot,7'[6volJ~ eli',; tx 1l"alOO',; / pox8euptV au. See Lee, "Shifts of Mood," 87. The position of the Greek for "always" (ad) in line 103 cleverly also allows the meaning, "I will always work on the tasks which I have done since childhood," thereby emphasizing how completely settled Ion is within this environment. 12. Pedrick emphasizes the fear that the audience would therefore feel at the multiple identities created for Ion (and in turn for Athens) through the cours,: of the play by the repeated but varying accounts of his original abandonment (57-103). An authoritative account of the city's foundation is eventually provided by means of a deus-ex machina, Athena, who prevents the multiplicity of versions from spiralling out of control. 13. See also S. Freud, "Remembering," 150. 14. See also A. Freud, The Ego, 111-14. 15. Rustin and Rustin suggest that ~the form of his revenge is to inflict on her what his baby self had felt exposed to at the time of his abandonment" (62). The anger demonstrated by Ion's murder attempt could also be seen as an important part of his "recovery" from a sense of maternal bereavement, which he has felt so keenly-and ironically-since his encounter with Kreousa. See Holmes on the NAOMI A. WEISS 45 significance of such expression of anger (91-92), as emphasized by Bowlby in Attachment and Loss: Volume II. 16. Such unrealized awareness is indicated by his sympathy for Kreousa upon their by his reaction to the experience of her "friend," first meeting and particularly who is of course the queen herself: he likens their respective sorrows, saying "this misfortune is in accord with my own suffering" (359)· a Il~ [1'£1(' o!K't"OV ~;cty'ou 'ArA~O"!trect. 17· 18. See also S. Freud, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," 20-:&1. For Freud, the unconscious instinctual is the repository of what is repressed from conscious thought, of desires, needs and psychic actions. For his division of mental processes into conscious, preconscious and unconscious, see S. Freud, An Outline 34-35· ovaa 1(rp. 19. esetce -rov vouv foxov iveaS' 20. See Lee, "Shifts of Mood," 91 on Kreousa's lack of recognition himself approaches here, even when Ion the truth at verse 357, suggesting that Apollo might have saved the child of her "friend" by rearing him in secret. 21. Athena instructs 22. tv <p6~Wl, 1"bCII?V, / KctmSrarIl1ctrJG.v a1TlpUAOV tUXQ:v.Of course, these words also ouv alW1fct 1fcti~50' highlight her now to "be silent about the fact that the boy is your son" (vcv w~1TE.<pUKt' (16~,1601). Ion's survival, which is an important the Greek audience-and abandoned 23. 24. part ofhis heroic identity for is the opposite fate to that suffered by most babies in real life, see Pedrick, 35-51. W-dKVOV, O'Tdxw!trvOrKOU~. On the link between recognition and self-recognition in tragedy, see Bennett, 110-18. 25. See also Lipin, 399-405. 26. yaAClK1"t 0' OUK bclrrxpv ouSt pacrrwl/ TpoCj}£iu [1a-rpoJ; ouot Aou't"paX£tpoiv.... 27. On Ion's development, see de Graft Hanson. His maturation in terms of the pleasure stage succeeding - development, could be viewed from the reality stage of mental see Weiss, 46-49. see Lee, Euripides: Ion, 225. 28. On this political speech as evidence of Ion's maturity, 29. eVant a' Ii coo nplv yrvla~.t' OUKtBuO'aflrv. 30. xpovov yap 5v fl' EXP~Vtv aYKaAul~/ fl1J1po~TpuiflijO'Ut K,dn Trprt>tlijvulplou / a1frO"rrp~e'1v <plATaT'1~ Il'1TPO~ 1"p0'flijs·Parental rejection or abandonment developmental abnormalities in infancy as a key factor in the emergence describe how masochistic "infant-mother 46 patients transactional commonly (Lipin 400). Bowlby also emphasizes results in maternal of a healthy ego. Novick and Novick have often suffered from disturbance system"; this leaves them "exclusively Recognition and Identity in Euripides'sIon love in the and anxiously tied to their mothers" though relation (315). The absence of a maternal not masochistic, certainly preoccupied bond has similarly left Ion, with his mother's identity and his to her. 31. See Forehand, 175-78. 32. TOUewii KaAoii!"al SOUAo,;, EltJ.lT.' 33. Ion's heritage is of course also crucial for the identity of Athens, see Pedrick, 57- 103· 34. ESSpovou.; S' ~ou -rra'Aatovs. 35. See also Blos, 75-128. 36. According to Bowlby's Attachment particularly important Theory, consistent for such awareness others to develop: as Holmes explains, of history ...from maternal maternal contact is of oneself and one's relationship "from maternal consistency with comes a sense holding comes the ability to hold one's self in one's own mind: the capacity for self-reflection, to conceive of oneself and others as having minds" (117). Upon contact with Kreousa, Ion not only gains increasing understanding appreciates Athenian 37. of and interest in his own standing within the world, but also more and more the attitudes of others (his "stepmother" Kreousa, the citizens) towards himself. Kreousa and her house therefore also seem to have been "reborn" in some way (Loraux 186-87). 38. Pedrick explores the interesting and the relationship recovery process between Freud as analyst and the Wolfman showing how, through identities parallels between this mutual as analysand, the gradual discovery of the primal scene, Freud constructs for himself as well as for his patient (see especially 59-103). Works Cited Aeschylus. Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoedias. Ed. Denys Page. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. Print. Bennett, Simon. "Recognition Perspectives." in Greek Tragedy: Psychoanalysis on Aristotelian Freud and Forbidden Knowledge. Ed. Peter Rudnytsky and Ellen Spitz. New York: New York University Press, 1994. 109-27. 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Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Print. Helen. Ed. William Allan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print. Forehand, Walter E. "Truth and Reality in Euripides' Ion." Ramus 8 (1979): 174-87· Print. Freud. Anna. "Adolescence." -. --. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 13(1958): 255-78. Print. The Ego and MechanisnJ.s of Defence. New York.: International Universities Press, 1936. Print. Freud, Sigmund. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle." Standard Edition 18. London: Hogarth Press. 1920. 7-64. Print. ---. Standard Edition "Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis." 11. London: Hogarth Press. 1910.9-58. Print. --. "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis." Standard Edition 17. London: Hogarth Press, 1918.7-122. Print. ---. "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis: Part III." Standard Edition 16. London: Hogarth Press, 1917.243-464. Print. --. --. An Outline of Psychoanalysis. Ed. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1949. Print. "Remembering. Repeating and Working-through." 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Emotion and Adaptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ]991. ~rint. Lear, Jonathan. Love and its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990. Print. Lee, Kevin H. "Shifts of Mood and Concepts of Time in Euripides' Ion." Tragedy and the Tragic. Ed. Michael Silk. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. 85-109. Print. --. Euripides: Ion. Warminster, UK: Aris and Philips, 1997. Print. Lipin, Theodore. "The Repetition Compulsion and 'Maturational' DriveRepresentatives." lnternasional loumal ojPyschoanalysis 44 (1963): 389-406. Print. Loraux, Nicole. "Kreousa the Autochthon: A Study of Euripides' Ion." Nothing to Do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in its Social Context. Ed. John Winkler and Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. 168-206. Print. Murnaghan, Sheila. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Print. 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Leiden, NL: E.J. Brill, 2003. Print. Zeitlin, Froma 1. "Mysteries of Identity and Designs of the Self in Euripides' Ion." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 35 (1989): 144-97. Print. NAOMI A. WEISS 49 6 THOMAS AQUINAS ON CHRISTIAN RECOGNITION 123 The Case ofMaty Magdalene KEVIN »>. \,,7 )J FREDERICK NARRATIVE VAUGHAN IDENTITY 141 Recognizing Oneself in Augustine and Ricoeur JENNA 8 SUNKENBERG THE INTERRUPTION INTERPOLATED JEFFREY 9 NEil SPENSER'S OF TRAUMATIC TALE OF DOROTEA DOUBLING 155 WEINER BAD ROMANCE 179 "First, Astonishments; Then, Consolations" in The Fatrfe Queene JOSEPH 10 I THE RINC HOME, THE PALACE, THE CELL 219 Places of Recognition in Le rouge et le nair and Great Expectations ROSA " MUCICNAT RECOGNIZING OUR MISRECOGNITIONS Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Recognition CHRISTINA TARNOPOlSKY CONTRIBUTORS IN 0 EX 265 261 241 IN THE 6 THOMAS AQUINAS ON CHRISTIAN RECOGNITION 123 The Case ofMaty Magdalene KEVIN »>. \,,7 )J FREDERICK NARRATIVE VAUGHAN IDENTITY 141 Recognizing Oneself in Augustine and Ricoeur JENNA 8 SUNKENBERG THE INTERRUPTION INTERPOLATED JEFFREY 9 NEil SPENSER'S OF TRAUMATIC TALE OF DOROTEA DOUBLING 155 WEINER BAD ROMANCE 179 "First, Astonishments; Then, Consolations" in The Fatrfe Queene JOSEPH 10 I THE RINC HOME, THE PALACE, THE CELL 219 Places of Recognition in Le rouge et le nair and Great Expectations ROSA " MUCICNAT RECOGNIZING OUR MISRECOGNITIONS Plato and the Contemporary Politics of Recognition CHRISTINA TARNOPOlSKY CONTRIBUTORS IN 0 EX 265 261 241 IN THE